The Institute Kids

Four months ago, I arrived here at Kasana….and shortly thereafter the other people who would be going through the Institute began to arrive as well. They live in what I affectionately call the “Institute village,” and we share all of our meals together. There are others who have already been on staff here at Kasana and who live in other areas of the compound…sadly I haven’t gotten to know them as well.

Our Institute village consists of five bandas (round huts) and a duplex down the hill, plus a kitchen and the dining hall/classroom. The residents are as follows: three single guys, one single gal (my roomie!), one young married couple, a couple and their daughter from Liberia, two Ugandan couples with children, and a new missionary family. There’s also a gentleman who has a family back in Kampala…he lives in one of the family groups but comes to eat meals with us.

I’ve been writing the rest of this post in my head for a while, and am finally sitting down to actually do it. I wanted to talk about the five African kids who have stolen their way into my heart these past weeks. When I leave, I’m going to miss everyone I’ve met here a lot….but especially these kids. {Here at Kasana, “Auntie” is used as a prefix before women’s names as a sign of respect}

Those first few weeks the kids were understandably shy. But now, looking back…it makes me chuckle inside. Because now they are anything but shy!!! Going to school here where English is the common language has helped that too—now they are actually confident enough to speak in whole sentences. J So I dedicate this post to these kids….and I pray God’s blessing on their life journeys.

There is the set of three siblings (a girl and two boys) who came with their parents from NHU’s other location. They have an older sister, but she stayed home for the sake of schooling. The daughter who is here helps a lot to take care of the littlest fella, and she still tends to be reserved. But there have been several times recently when I’ve seen her beautiful face light up with joy and excitement, and just last night she was teaching me how to say “moon” and “stars” in her mother language J

When I got back from the Institute break of four days, she and a classmate were just getting back from a day at school. She ran up to give me a big hug and the traditional Ugandan greeting to one who returns from a journey: “Auntie!! Welcome back!” Adding on, “this is my friend who is in my class!” I think that might have been the first time I heard her speak two whole sentences in English…

The older of the two boys was missing his two front teeth when I first met him. Now they are mostly grown in. The whole time, he’s had the most adorable grin. A few weeks back I taught several of the kids how to play “Go Fish,” and now this fella’s favorite question is “Auntie, we play the cards??” After I started working in the afternoons, my roommate told me he kept coming to our hut asking to play cards with me when I was gone.

He’s also our most frequent meal bell ringer. And he can play the djembe drum with better rhythm than I can! I tell you what, these kids just have rhythm in their blood! I love how concentrated he is when he does it, his mouth partly agape…his head usually tilted to one side J

Their little brother has me wound around his little finger. Man, those first couple weeks he was so whiny and so withdrawn….but now! Well, now he’s like the baby of a great big family J And I think I’m probably his favorite auntie… :D I don’t even remember how it started…but he taught me how to give a piggy back ride African style. The little kids here know how to hang on tight! After our meals, he almost always runs up behind me and grabs onto my skirt and we go through a whole routine of piggy back riding traditions that have developed over the past weeks. And even though he’s not far out of the toddler stage, he is perfectly capable of feeding himself (though it does make something of a mess) and washing his hands regularly (though he does need lifting to be able to reach the sink!). His name is perfect for him, because his laugh is probably the cutest I have ever heard.

He’s also started talking while here, kind of all of a sudden one week in the past month and a half or so. And now he talks up a STORM! On mornings when he’s in a good mood (about 50/50), I can tell it’s breakfast time when I hear his adorable little voice singing “happy birthday to yoooou, happy birthday to yooooou.” When we pray, his “AMEN!” is usually the loudest (and occasionally a wee bit premature…). “How are yooou? I’m FINE!” is another favorite, especially at breakfast. And when I have him on my back and go sit down in one of the cushioned chairs (to signal that I’m worn out for the day), he says (with the biggest grin on his face) what he’s evidently heard me say a few times: “I am tIReddd.” He’s also taught me some of his language! Akipi is water, Iya is again, and Inya is there (the last two I had to have his mother explain to me because he kept saying them during our piggy back riding times!)

Two other girls round out the little group. Both are between the ages of the two boys in the three-some

The older one is something else. She’s probably the most spunky, out-going little kid I have ever seen! She’s just a firecracker, always on the go, always in motion…sometimes to the point of minor calamities (I have no idea how many cups she’s spilled or pieces of silverware she’s dropped here…. ;-). My first clear memory of her is the day the first week when I was the blind man in Blind Man’s Bluff and she opened the closed door and ran into a stranger’s house, grabbed my hand, and tried to lead me to the kids I was trying to tag. That’s just how this little gal operates.

She definitely acts like she’s a little princess and certainly isn’t afraid to make her wants and desires known…and expects them to be met! And her high energy level can be hard to keep up with sometimes. But she is also definitely a blessing, with her joyfulness and her vivacity. The only times I’ve seen her close to “calm” is when she’s just gotten up from a nap. That’s the one occasion when she’s sporting a gloomy face and not running around laughing and chattering away. I love her facial expressions too…I can definitely see her dad in her face and in her voice J

The other little girl was the second most reserved of the group. I met her right after she and her parents got here, and she was hiding behind the door. I watched her interact with the friends from home who had brought her family down, and I knew it would take some time before I was able to interact with her that way. Sometime in the first couple weeks I went over and sat talking to her parents for a little while…and that was the first time I heard her speak a whole sentence…but in her native tongue. But just like all the others, she has since blossomed into quite the cheerful little lark. Quite often, she’ll be singing at the top of her voice rather early in the morning (good thing I’m an early riser!).

She and her parents are my closest neighbors, and I love all the little exchanges we have. Like her brushing her teeth outside and showing me how she can make the water squirt out of her mouth. Like her announcing to me “I am washing!” in her sweet little accent when she is doing her laundry (by hand, of course). Like just today her hollering from outside of my hut: “Auntie Esther!” “yes?” “Hi!” But boy, this little lady has some shrill vocal cords! If you tickle her or startle her (both of which happen to most of these five kids on a pretty regular basis…), you better be prepared to have a loud scream split your ears! In the past couple weeks she’s really attached to me, running up whenever she sees me and practically jumping into my arms. The funniest thing to me is how on nights like last night, when the temperature is maybe 60 degrees, she walks around wearing a coat/jacket lined with cozy warm fluff. Weather is certainly relative!

So yep, that’s the description of my five little “nieces and nephews” here. I’m so thankful that they have good families and parents who love them and care about them (including coming to the Institute partly to learn about parenting their kids)! It’s a good thing they do….because if they didn’t…….well, it would be a lot harder to leave them behind. It will be sad anyway, but I’m thankful to know I leave them in the most able hands of God and the good hands of their parents.